Retail Auto Parts Sales Outlook for 2012
Welcome back to our blog! Today we’ll look at auto aftermarket Trend 25: Our outlook for retail auto parts and accessories sales for 2012 and two important industry trends you should know:
Auto parts trends 2012
1). January-June 2012 showed about a 5.4% increase over 2011 despite June showing a decrease from one year ago. June 2012 went negative partially because June 2011 was a huge month.
Still, it was the first month that didn’t show an increase over the previous year since February 2010 and that’s a concern.
Even with June showing a decrease, the first half of the year looked great, thanks to unseasonably warm weather in January and February, the two tall bars in the chart at left. The weather pulled March and April sales into January and February, giving retailers a nice sales bump and catching some in the industry off-guard with the need to replenish inventory.
2). The rest of 2012 is unclear right now. Many factors are clouding the outlook for July-December. Negative factors include the uncertainty of the presidential election, while positive factors include consumer credit and personal income, both showing improvement, as well as the recent uptick in the SEMA Consumer Demand Index (CDI) and consumer confidence in the economy. Right now we’ve lowered our forecast for 2012 and we’re forecasting the year to end up with a 3% to 4% increase over last year.
Auto parts trends in 2012 and beyond
We’ll continue to watch the economy and auto parts sales so check back regularly. What’s your outlook on the economy? Feel free to leave comments below.
Saturday you might be enjoying football on TV but we’ll be in the office crunching more data, so check in for tomorrow’s Trend 24: where crankshaft buyers go to find information before purchasing auto parts.
#66trends #SEMAshow #AAPEXshow
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
[…] We said at the beginning of October and again a month ago that despite the soft June and August, our forecast for the year was a 3% to 4% increase over 2011, but we need to watch the economic signs closely through the end of the year to see if that holds. Check back on our blog for more updates in the coming months. […]
[…] [TREND 14] …so it’s not as though retail sales are tanking. We posted 11 days ago that the first half of 2012 was up about 5.4% over 2011.
One factor was consumer confidence back in August. Consumer confidence, […]
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